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One of the real issues that remain with the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Bill 2007 was that the essential elements of a reporting scheme included comprehensive coverage of emitters, data at both corporate and facility level, reporting on a range of relevant activities, transparent and objective processes for calculating emissions and public accountability of the scheme, Tasmania’s Senator Christine Milne said in the Commonwealth Senate on 20 September 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

Only one in 10 Australian companies knew how much greenhouse gas they were producing and only a quarter have tried to save water, according to the biggest-ever survey on environmental management in Australian industry, reported The Age (11/9/2007, p.3).

States can appeal against Fed Greenhouse chief’s decisions, said Malcolm Turnbull, as he filed amendments for a “right of appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to enable state and territory governments to appeal against a decision of the Greenhouse and Energy Data Officer not to disclose greenhouse and energy information.

Rather than changing your lifestyle, there was another way to clear your conscience about the size of your carbon footprint: via your wallet and carbon offsets, reported The Australian (15/9/2007, p.1). Selling savings back to consumers: For around $300 companies such as Easy Being Green could render a large family household “carbon neutral” for a year. This equated to reducing the amount of CO2 pollution a home produced by nearly 15 tonnes. Other companies in this space included the Carbon Reduction Institute and Neco. These companies undertook energy efficient projects and installed energy-saving technologies — such as compact fluorescent light globes and water-saving showerheads — into homes and businesses across the country. Easy Being Green offers energy-efficient light globes, installed in homes free of charge, via its website. Each of these globes is then calculated as providing 15,000 hours of energy-saving light that will cut CO2 pollution by 900kg in its lifetime. The company is then authorised to sell that 900kg saving back to customers for $20 through any one of its carbon-neutral packages (it offers a $297.15 package for a 4+ person family home). Devilishly clever and everyone wins, including the planet — or does it?

Consumers buy clean consciences: As George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning has said: “Any scheme that persuades us we can carry on polluting delays the point at which we grasp the nettle of climate change and accept that our lives have to change… By selling us a clean conscience, the offset companies are undermining the necessary political battle to tackle climate change at home. They are telling us we don’t need to be citizens; we need only to be better consumers.”

Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon had not helped himself, showing poor judgment when he allowed a company owned by Gunns to renovate his home when the state Government was trying to push through the $2 billion pulp-mill project for Gunns, according to The Australian (15/9/2007, p. 26).

Federal Labor had flagged subjecting the proposed Tasman­ian pulp mill to an assessment of its greenhouse gas impact, amid claims that it alone would generate 2 per cent of Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions, reported The Australian (7/9/2007, p. 4).

Jim Wilkinson, Member for Nelson, Independent, speaking to the Legislative Council, Parliament of Tasmania, Tasmania, 30 August 2007 said “With the pulp mill commencing operations, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by approximately a net 1.3 million tonnes of CO 2 equivalent per annum.

Federal Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Malcolm Turnbull, answering a series of written questions from Labor MP Kelvin Thomson in the Federal House of Representatives on 11 September 2007, said he was aware of the findings of the ABARE report Economic Impact of Climate Change Policy, which models a decrease in emissions of 50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050; and of a number of other reports which model the cost of reducing emissions within other timeframes.

The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus had called for a worldwide lifestyle change, saying global warming was “a matter of life and death” for low-lying nations like his own country, Bangladesh, reported The Courier Mail (14/9/2007, p. 28).